Supreme Court says letting the Biden administration keep the eviction moratorium in place could open the door to mandates for 'free grocery delivery for the sick and vulnerable and free computers to let Americans work from home'
Conservatives on the Supreme Court said that allowing the eviction moratorium to continue could set a precedent for government mandated 'free grocery delivery' and 'free internet' for people to work from home.
'Preventing [landlords] from evicting tenants who breach their leases intrudes on one of the most fundamental elements of property ownership—the right to exclude,' the majority opinion reads from the Thursday decision.
The court's decision will allow for landlords to evict tenants who have not paid rent in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
Questioned in the unsigned opinion from the six conservative justices was hypothetical situations for how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could overreach its authority in the future, as they claim it did so in extending the moratorium.
'Could the CDC, for example, mandate free grocery delivery to the homes of the sick or vulnerable?' the majority opinion reads. 'Require manufacturers to provide free computers to enable people to work from home? Order telecommunications companies to provide free high-speed Internet service to facilitate remote work?'
All this to say, the court feels that the CDC cannot decide for the sake of public health that other aspects of business can be impacted, like preventing landlords from collecting rent.
They also claim that congressional action is needed to extend the moratorium.
The Supreme Court elected to end the national eviction moratorium in a 6-3 vote on Thursday, claiming it would lead to a precedent of mandated 'free grocery delivery for the sick' or 'free computers and internet' to work from home
The decision again exhibited the power Republicans have with the court's 6-3 conservative majority, which is now allowing evictions to resume across the U.S. as it blocks the Biden administration from continuing to enforce a temporary ban that was put in place because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The vote was split by party line with conservatives John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett voting to end the eviction moratorium, and liberals Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan voting to keep it.
The justices said in an unsigned opinion Thursday that the CDC, which reimplemented the moratorium on August 3, lacked the authority to do so under federal law without explicit congressional authorization.
'It would be one thing if Congress had specifically authorized the action that the CDC has taken,' the court wrote. 'But that has not happened. Instead, the CDC has imposed a nationwide moratorium on evictions in reliance on a decades-old statute that authorizes it to implement measures like fumigation and pest extermination. It strains credulity to believe that this statute grants the CDC the sweeping authority that it asserts.'
Real estate groups in Georgia and Alabama had argued this point and told the high court that the moratorium caused property owners across the nation significant financial hardships, USA Today reports.
Property owners had to continue to pay expenses while not receiving payments from renters. They were also banned from evicting nightmare tenants, who were given free reign to make their neighbors' lives a misery.
Court said the CDC did not have the power to extend the moratorium. Housing advocates protest on August 4 to allow the eviction moratorium to continue in New York
As of August 25, nearly 90 per cent of the federal funds meant to help landlords make up for the loss of funds had not been distributed, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.
Roughly 3.5 million people in the United States said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to Census Bureau data from early August.
After the Thursday ruling, several progressive lawmakers pleaded with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to act with the 'highest levels of urgency' to combat evictions.
The lawmakers asked the leaders in a Friday letter to work to revive the national eviction moratorium after the Supreme Court ruled congressional action is needed.
'Millions of people who are currently at risk for eviction, housing insecurity, or face becoming unhoused desperately look to their elected representatives to implement legislation that will put their health and safety first and save lives,' the letter reads.
The effort was led by Representative Ayanna Pressley and signed on by more than 60 Democrats, including fellow 'squad' members Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Cori Bush.
Bush, who was once homeless before running for office, led protesters in sleeping outside the Capitol earlier this summer when the moratorium faced its end before the CDC expanded it.
The Supreme Court had originally allowed the eviction freeze to continue to July in a 5-4 vote, but Kavanaugh, who voted to keep it, indicated that he would vote against any further extension.
Roberts followed suit and voted against the moratorium with Kavanagh on Thursday.
In his dissenting opinion, Breyer asserted that the court should not end the moratorium on an expedited basis.
'Applicants raise contested legal questions about an important federal statute on which the lower courts are split and on which this court has never actually spoken,' Breyer wrote. 'These questions call for considered decision making, informed by full briefing and argument. Their answers impact the health of millions.'
The national eviction freeze was set in place at the start of the pandemic and continued on until July, when the Supreme Court previously upheld it in a 5-4 vote
The Biden administration's extension of the eviction moratorium was heralded by members the 'the Squad,' including U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who had celebrated the announcement earlier this month.
She and fellow Democratic congress woman Cori Bush had demonstrated outside the Capitol in protest of the moratorium's original deadline at the start of August.
Bush was hailed as a key figure who pushed Biden and his administration to extend the deadline after five continuous days of protest, tweeting about her accomplishment.
'Squad' member Ilhan Omar also acknowledged Bush's efforts in spearheading the moratorium extension, The Hill reported.
U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, a fellow democrat from California who sponsored a House bill to extend the eviction freeze, also thanked Biden 'from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of millions of renters.
'This extension of the moratorium is the lifeline that millions of families have been waiting for. From the very beginning of this pandemic, it was clear that eviction moratoriums not only kept people housed, but also saved lives,' Waters said in a statement.
A group of Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer urging them to act congressionally to extend the moratorium after the Supreme Court said the CDC overreached
This was the second high court loss for the administration this week at the hands of the court's conservative majority.
On Tuesday, the court effectively allowed the reinstatement of a Trump-era policy forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their hearings.
The new administration had tried to end the Remain in Mexico program, as it is informally known.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court voted the same way to strike down part of New York's eviction moratorium.
In the same 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled against allowing COVID-19 hardships to stand as a reason to ban landlords from kicking out tenants. The state's rules allowed renters to simply state they'd suffered financial hardship and avoid eviction without providing any evidence.
New Yorkers renting apartments will also now no longer be able to stay in homes they've stopped paying rent on by claiming that doing so would endanger their health.
The pause on evictions expires at the end of August, meaning people could start getting kicked out of their apartments by the end of this month.
Incoming Governor Kathy Hochul criticized Thursday's ruling, saying that she and state lawmakers would work to try and reinforce the moratorium.
Both parts of the law that have been cut were enacted when COVID decimated many of New York's biggest industries - including hospitality and travel - leaving people who worked in them fearful of being made homeless.
The state has since largely reopened, and its economy appears to be on the path to recovery.
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